After a three and a half month study abroad trip in the small village, the elders approached him formally and asked him to help them rebuild the building.  John agreed on the spot, and upon returning to the US, John started 5C and raised money through clothing sales and event production in order to rebuild the school in Ampento.  

After graduating Williams in 2010, John went off to Ghana to solidify plans for the reconstruction of the school building and came back with blueprints, an estimate and a commitment to sponsor Ampento's star student through high school. Since then John became the 2nd employee at a secret tech start up that now has 400 people.

John was listed as an inventor on 11 patent applications in 2011 and is proficient in English, Spanish and SQL (Structured Query Language).

Atanga Martin was born in Bolgatanga, Ghana to an extremely poor family and amidst famine and despair, Martin became the man of the house at age 12 when his father died and took care of the farm from then until his early teens when he journeyed south to accra to pursue a career as a painter. MArtin worked as an apprentice for painters in Tamale, and Kumasi before gathering enough money to move to accra. 

Since in Accra he's managed to open his own shop on the water near the arts center, as well as support young orphans, who like martin, have made the journey from Bolga to Accra.  I met martin in 2008 when i bought 2 paintings from him for my mother and sister, and ran into him again in 2010, by means of sheer fate. Since then we have become business partners and great friends.  His work is                                                                                       undeniable, and I truly believe he could be one of the world's next great painters.

_ Mike DelVecchio is 5C’s first resident artist from the U.S.  Mike has been playing in bands since 16 and currently plays bass for “The Handsome Men” out of Clifton, NJ.  Mike has produced or engineered several tracks from a wide range of genres and with various levels of resources.  Mike took up paintings two years ago in college and since has produced a series of works that showed at the 6th street community center on December 22. 

“Now that I've completed a traditional series of paintings, other than of course doing this again and again I'd be interested in... doing print designs for fashion...doing large-scale painting-based installations, self-producing a mixtape of electronic music, and/or being on nyc late night television.”

Mike graduated from Union College in 2010 with a Bachelors of Science in Mathematics and a High School Diploma from Fordham Preparatory School.